Jacques the fatalist
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Jacques the Fatalist, by Denis Diderot, is unlike any other book I have ever read. In most books or novels the author never stops the story line to directly talk to the reader. If the storyline is interrupted in a novel it is by a long narration from a voice that is not absolutely identified as the writers voice itself. However in this case the author/writer stops the action of the story and completely changes the subject, or lists things he is not going to write about because it is not a "novel." However by listing the things that he is not going to tell us about he actually does tell us about them. By doing this, Diderot is able to give the reader an idea of how the story could be without actually putting the events in the actually story of Jacques and his master. It is interesting that as a reader all you want is for Jacques to finish at least one of his stories, especially the story of his loves. However, all Diderot does is change the subject, whether he does it through the character of Jacques or he steps outside the story to stop the action of the actual story entirely to go off on another tangent.
The way in which Diderot interrupts the storyline mirrors the way in which different people and events seem to interrupt Jacques' life itself. The way in which the story unfolds really tests the reader's patients and ability to follow the storyline...